


graveyard shift

by spencerreld (plantmajor)



Category: Criminal Minds, Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Buried Alive, Charles Hankel is an asshole, Gen, it's that au, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 14:36:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12773124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plantmajor/pseuds/spencerreld
Summary: at first, when he's started digging his own grave, he thought charles and raphael would slit his throat and bury him there so that the team would never find his body. but now, with charles having gone through the trouble of actually getting a coffin, he knew.spencer was going to die.(or, the one where spencer is buried alive and it's almost too late)





	graveyard shift

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [похоронная смена](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15765549) by [Wannarexic (The_Globalist)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Globalist/pseuds/Wannarexic)



GRAVEYARD SHIFT

—∆—

 

he didn’t reach the gun in time. a part of him knew he wouldn’t be able to, his arm stretching as far as he could but he was too _tired_ and _hopeless_ and charles hankel turned around before he could wrap his fingers around the handle of the revolver.

 

“what the hell do you think you’re doing, boy?” the rough voice of charles rang out, and spencer’s headache only grew. a muddy boot kicked the gun away, and a hand grabbed a fistfull of wavy brown hair, pulling reid’s head back. “were you trying to kill me?”

 

“i— no, i'm sorry.” reid’s sobs drowned out his words. he was crying, his hope drifting away because it'd been too long and they were never going to find him and he was going to die alone. “i wasn’t.”

 

“ _liar!_ ” charles's hand struck him across the face, his cheek now throbbing.

 

“i.. i’m not a liar.”

 

“you're a devil. you and everyone on your team.” charles continued, the hand still holding onto spencer's hair beginning to pull him away.

 

spencer grimaced, a part of him wishing for tobias to come back, because if spencer wanted one of the three to kill him he would choose tobias.

 

maybe this time tobias would give him more of that silver liquid that courses through his veins and lets him escape to a world where everything was dark and quiet but not that type of dark that gave spencer a panicked feeling, but a comforting darkness that felt like his mother holding him close as she read to him.

 

but if it had to be charles, then he hoped it was quick.

 

spencer was dragged a few yards away (maybe three, maybe four) and was then thrust against something hard, hard enough to probably leave a bruise on spencer’s back for the ones who found his body to see. he turned, his droopy eyes settling on the wooden box and he let out another sob; another soft cry for help that no one would hear.

 

_oh god, he was going to bury him alive._

 

at first, when he's started digging his own grave, he thought charles and raphael would slit his throat and bury him there so that the team would never find his body. but now, with charles having gone through the trouble of actually getting _a coffin_ , he knew.

 

spencer was going to die.

 

“please,” he tried, one last time. his voice was weak, his head hurt and he had an urge for whatever tobias had given him, because it _helped._ “you don't have to do this.”

 

“you’re _weak_.” charles said, and this time spencer didn’t have the energy to contradict the statement. he was weak. he was twenty-five and an fbi special agent and he was crying when someone like morgan or hotch would be fighting to their last dying breath.

 

“ _please_.” he whispered as charles picked him like a rag doll (everyone could anyways, he weighed a buck twenty soaking wet) and threw him into the coffin. he began moving the lid onto him and spencer started to hyperventilate.

 

“tobias, please!” he said, kicking against the box. “tobias! charles, you don’t have to do this!”

 

“cursed be he who does the lord’s work remissly, cursed he who holds back his sword from blood.” he could hear a monotone voice speak, _raphael_ , the words muffled from the wooden box in between the two. “jeremiah 48:10.”

 

“proverbs 6… lines 16 to 19..” he choked out as a final plea. “there are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil,  a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”

 

raphael opened the casket, just a slit; just enough for spencer to see his cold, dead eyes. “you are not innocent blood.” with a loud thud, the top was back and it was dark again.

 

yeah, it was really dark, did he mention that? it was the type of dark that spencer used to have nightmares of, the type of dark that kept the child awake when there wasn’t a light on. it was suffocating; pressing against his chest and his throat, cutting off his air and---

 

the coffin started moving, and spencer started to punch and scratch and kick even _harder._ “let me out!” he started to hyperventilate again. he felt like he was crying, sobbing, but tears weren’t leaving his eyes and the back of his mind (the rational part) told him that that wasn't a good sign, that he was probably dehydrated.

 

the box was pushed then, and flipped so that spencer was upside down. He can hear charles raphael’s footsteps as the man uses his might to shove the box into the small hole that spencer had just dug himself minutes before.

this was the end. spencer thought solemnly. this was the end and spencer started to reg

 

_"Elle, you got shot in your own home, and then_

_you_

 _came back to the BAU_ _like nothing_

_even happened,_

 

_thinking you_

_might want to_ _talk isn't profiling._

_It's psych 101."_

 

ret and he began to go over everything in his mind that didn’t make sense that he should have done b

 

_“Please, these are_

 

_my things. This is my life. Spencer, please_

_don’t_

_do_

_this to me.”_

 

                        etter and everything is going through his mind at an alarming rate and some part of him knows that he’s gotta slow down his breathing as to save oxygen and that he should start thinking of a way to escape but he can hear

 

_“There’s                               only one question that_

_really matters, Mr. Garner.                    Can you_

_forgive_

_yourself?_

 

the soft thud of the soil falling onto the box, trapping him under the ground for land developers to find his body fifty years in the future.

 

_He’s going to die_

_He’s going to die_

_He’s going to die_

_He’s going to d_

 

with a long sigh, a long deep breath, spencer regains his bearings (no he didn’t he’s just pretending he’s going to die he’s going to die) and begins to think of a way out. he’s not kicking or screaming anymore, trying to save as much oxygen for as long as he could. the average person, he remembers, thinking back to the countless books and medical journals and random pages on the internet that  he’s read, can survive approximately five and a half hours in a coffin of their height. spencer, though, has the disadvantage of being a six foot guy in a 5 by 5 by 3 box. he would do the math, but he needs to spend his time trying to control his oxygen intake (that's not true he's just not thinking straight enough to even take two seconds to think and that _scares him_ ).

he estimates that he has about ten minutes, possibly less.

spencer takes short breaths, waits ten seconds, then takes another short breath, continuing to repeat that over and over and over again. it doesn't help, and he _knows_ ; he can already feel himself growing weary and he can feel his eyes clo-- _NO._ he thinks, doing his best to stay strong as the little water he has left in his body begins to flood from his eyes. the rational part of him in this moment, the one at the side of his brain that he just can't get himself to listen to tells him that a human an survive without oxygen for a little more than three minutes, that soon the abundance of carbon dioxide in the air is going to make him comatose and just thinking about it he can feel the panic fill in and his eyes are fluttering and he can feel that horrible sensation of the dark suffocating, except this time  _he's actually_ _suffocating_.

somewhere, as he's blacking out, he can hear a loud bang that sounds like a gunshot and his heart skips a beat because maybe his friends are here and they're going to save him and he'll be fi

—∆—

 

_“and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”_

_daniel twelve: two_

 

**Author's Note:**

> i began writing this six or so months ago while waiting for my mother to pay for some clothes she bought in some store while visiting family in spain. i thought it got deleted, but nope. there it was, at the bottom of the docs, a measly 700 words and today i decided to finish it off after re-watching a bunch of criminal minds episodes at twelve am
> 
> i hope the characters weren't super ooc. thank you for reading!!


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